In many imaging systems such as digital fluorography the initial images of the objects under study are converted to digital data that is stored in matrix form. The data form of the image is basically used for enhancement and storage purposes.
In general, in the prior art, the matrix sizes correspond to the pixel arrangement of the displayed images. Thus 512.times.512 matrices are used when the displayed image comprises 512.times.512 pixels. As is well known one of the limitations on the resolution of a system is the number of pixels in the image, accordingly it is advantageous from the standpoint of resolution to use as many pixels as possible in the image and accordingly as large a matrix as possible to hold the image data.
The matrices currently available commercially are 64.times.64, 128.times.128, 256.times.256, 512.times.512 and 1024.times.1024. The 512.times.512 matrix is currently the most popular matrix for DF usage. The 1024.times.1024 matrix provides the capability of finer resolution but expensive wide or broad bandwidth equipment is normally required to use the 1024.times.1024 data for display purposes when the data is transferred at the speeds required for video display.
Thus although the 1024.times.1024 matrices provide the capability for finer resolution the 512.times.512 matrix is normally used because of price considerations. It should further be pointed out that satisfactory resolution is obtained with the 512.times.512 matrices if the system is used to view only a portion of the field. However the resolution is lacking when viewing the complete field.